Director of Sales, AsiaPac

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Another great Funko opening – for the Asia-Pacific, to be specific.

I know we’ ve already sent a couple of Funko announcements your way – the Everett pop-culture products company is growing extremely fast, and it’ s looking for terrific people who can help it keep its torrid sales ablaze.

To give you a sense of just how cookin’ these guys are, consider this: Funko doesn’ t just have customers – it has fans.

Check this out: The Funko booths at the Comic-Con gatherings in San Diego and New York weren’ t staffed by company employees.

They were staffed by volunteers – people who had spent the night in line to enter a lottery to be chosen to work the booth for no pay aside from access to limited-edition Funko items.

That kind of devotion is the fuel propelling this company’ s jet ride. And if being a fan of Funko is this enthralling, imagine what it might be like to work there.

As you might imagine, Funko’ s workplace culture is, well, funky. The Everett office has a full bowling alley, an onsite gym, and slides next to every staircase. The vibe is youthful, fast-paced, unstructured, and full of pop-culture images and artifacts.

That’ s to be expected: When you hold licenses from such universe-shaping brands as Marvel, DC Comics, Disney, and Star Wars, you know there’ s going to be some pretty iconic swag lying around.

If this kind of atmosphere (combined with occasional travel to incredibly interesting places) sounds ideal to you, I suggest checking out Funko’ s new opening for Director of Sales, Asia-Pacific.

This isn’ t a management position – yet. While it’ s an individual-contributor role for now, there may well be an opportunity to build and manage a team before too long.

In the meantime, there’ ll be plenty to keep you busy. This job is responsible for managing a portfolio of accounts with annual revenue of $500K or more, and includes the development of retail and distribution strategy; close analysis of market trends; the establishment of sales targets; and support for national events and trade shows.

To fill the role, Funko is looking for someone with strong knowledge of the toy, collectible, or consumer packaged-goods sectors. They want someone who’ s genuinely creative and deeply attuned to global pop culture. Fluency in a major Asian language – especially Mandarin – would be a huge plus.

Curious? If so, let me know!

PS From PSP: So, this whole Amazon “ new headquarters” thing. What do we think about this? I understand the perspective of those who still hold to a “ Lesser Seattle” mindset, and who (not without reason) attribute the enormous rise in housing and commercial real-estate costs at least in part to Amazon’ s massive and ever-growing presence here.

But folks, there’ s a reason why so many towns are clamoring for “ HQ2.” They desire it because it’ s desirable – and any of you who moved here from a struggling small town or Rust Belt city know quite well that a major employer is nothing to take for granted.

As a proud Washingtonian and someone who tries to see Seattle not just as a city but as a metropolitan region, part of me really wishes that all the development (and hiring) that will go with the second Amazon HQ could be parceled out between a couple of other communities in our metro area – say, for example, Bellevue and Tacoma.

That could be an everybody-wins scenario. It would enable Amazon to stretch out while also keeping all its executive functions within a short drive (and a single time zone) rather than having to worry about all the money and hassle that would go into ferrying people from Seattle to some faraway alternative site.

For the greater Seattle region, meanwhile, this approach would allow a wider range of communities to pool their strengths and participate in the growth of one of the world’ s most innovative firms. Dare to dream? ###